Despite being most closely associated with South Africa and its music and culture, specifically as an advocate for multi-ethic integration, Jonathan Clegg was actually born in England. He lived with his Zimbabwean mother Muriel in the town of Bacup, Lancashire. His English father Dennis left the family when he was a baby. When he was seven-years-old, having spent some time in Israel his mother got remarried to a South African reporter. His stepfather took the eight-year-old Clegg into the Townships where the elder man taught drums.
The family later immigrated to Zambia - a democratic, non-racial country. The major turning point for Clegg as a musician was when, at the age of 14, he met a street guitarist and migrant worker from KwaZulu called Sipho Mchunu who was playing Zulu music. Shortly after this meeting Clegg was arrested for the first time for trespassing on municipal property. His teenage years saw Clegg learning how to be a Zulu both musically and culturally, not feeling that this was in anyway political until he went to university to study politics and anthropology. He and Mchunu, however, remained close and in the early 1970s formed an acoustic duo called Juluka. Doing so contravened the Apartheid laws then in force in South Africa that banned black people and white people from consorting together. Simultaneously he studied at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he achieved his degree in social anthropology before becoming a member of staff. He lectured and wrote about Zulu music and dance for four years.
In 1976 Clegg and Mchunu expanded Juluka to six members, three black and three white, and because of the laws in place at the time struggled to find anywhere to play outside of private homes, churches and other sympathetic and secretive venues. Their music explored Zulu, English language, Celtic, rock, wider African, folk and jazz themes and was forcefully political. Despite getting no radio or television play, the band became successful and were able to play international tours - only then to face harassment by the South African government and ignorance by the media. In 1985, after Mchuni's retirement, Clegg began looking in new musical directions. He formed his next band, Savuka in collaboration with the singer and dancer Dudu Zulu. Savuka was a far more modern and more overtly political outfit that used synthesisers with a view to moving towards a fusion of international rock and the wider African music that Juluka had been playing.
Tragically, having gained international recognition as well as popularity at home albeit in secret, the band was forced to breakup in 1993 following the death of co-founder Dudu Zulu. After this, Clegg pursued a solo career with new music and greater profile following the demise of the Apartheid regime. However, one song, recorded during those bleak times, remained a major part of his repertoire; 'Asimbonanga' was written about Nelson Mandela and his imprisonment on Robben Island. Clegg continued to record and tour until his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in 2015. He died of the condition on 16th July 2019 in his Johannesburg home. A week following his death, a memorial concert and service was held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, attended by fellow artists including the Soweto Gospel Choir, Zolani Mahola and his friend and band mate Sipho Mchunu.
